AAAR 34th Annual Conference
October 12 - October 16, 2015
Hyatt Regency
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Biological Effects of Combustion Aerosols on Human Lung Cells Exposed at the Air Liquid Interface: Comparison Between Ship Engine and Wood Combustion Aerosols
Ralf Zimmermann, Gunnar Dittmar, Tamara Kanashova, Jeroen Buters, Sebastian Öder, Marco Dilger, Carsten Weiss, Horst Harndorf, Benjamin Stengel, Karsten Hiller, Sean Sapcariu, Kelly BeruBe, Anna Julia Wlodarczyk, Bernhard Michalke, Thorsten Streibel, Erwin Karg, Jürgen Schnelle-Kreis, Martin Sklorz, Jürgen Orasche, Patrick Richthammer, Johannes Passig, Ahmed Reda, Olli Sippula, Jorma Jokiniemi, LAARNIE MÜLLER, Helmholtz Zentrum München
Abstract Number: 715 Working Group: Health Related Aerosols
Abstract The dosis, chemical composition, size, morphology and surface of aerosols affect their transport in the human lung and interaction with the biological interface. Within the framework of Virtual Institute of Helmholtz (HICE), the observed aerosol properties were combined with the observed biological effects from human lung epithelial cell exposed for 4 hours at a similar dilution above the detection limit of cytoxicity to ship engine (heavy fuel oil (HFO) and diesel fuel (DF)) and wood combustion (logwood and pellet) emissions in an Air-Liquid Interface (ALI) system. State-of-the art instrumentations (SMPS, ELPI, AMS, GC-MS, ICP-MS, TEM, XRF…) were used to comprehensively characterize the emissions. Multi-omics techniques (transcriptome, metabolome, and proteome) were applied to study the cellular responses at the molecular level to determine induction of mechanisms leading to toxicity. We found short term biological response in terms of multi-omics induction strength as follows: DF>HFO>pellet>logwood. From the chemical and physical data, the DF aerosol contained mainly of agglomerated elemental carbon (EC) while the others are mostly compact internally mixed with organics or metals/inorganics. The encounter of the EC-rich DF aerosols with the proteins, DNA, and RNA in cells led to synergistic phenomena outstandingly, protein changes which may have caused by their hydrophobicity that can directly interfere with the lipid-protein interphase in the cell membrane and high surface area causing broader interactions. The HFO and logwood aerosols having organic coatings activated the xenobiotic metabolism may be due to their complex organic functionalities. This study shows that looking at the bulk properties especially of surface chemistry of the aerosols may link the observed biological responses. It also follows that although EC-rich aerosols had shown immediate toxicity, the toxicity of the internally-mixed aerosols may increase with time due to the eventual release/metabolism of the inner components such as EC and heavy metals.